The (Lack of) Wisdom of Crowds: Predictions Makes Fools of us All

The reveal of the semi-final running orders earlier this week lead a to a flurry of qualifier predictions from the Eurofandom. This reminded me of the myriad replies I got to a recent tweet calling out for the worst pre-Contest predictions. I’ve trawled through all the replies and quote tweets and collated the most popular wrong calls from the last few years. It’s fair to say that, as a fandom, we’re sometimes very wide of the mark

What's your Eurovision prediction at the time that aged like milk?

Mine was genuinely believing Madame Monsieur we're nailed on top 3 and had a shout at winning in 2018.

— Pif Paf Blog (@ESCPifPaf) February 28, 2021

France 2018

Now in all fairness as I mentioned it in the original tweet, this was something of a leading question. However, many did seem to share my feeling that with Madame Monsieur in 2018 the French were on to something. The inkling that the emotional story of Mercy would translate, hitting home with jurors and televoters alike started off looking good. The very first douze points went the way of the French couple and for about 30 seconds I was mentally preparing myself for a cross Channel Contest in 2019. Turns out…maybe not.

United Kingdom 2014

This was the year that things were going to turn around for us Brits at the Eurovision Song Contest. Having followed Josh Dubovie with a mixed bag of heritage acts the internal selection of Molly’s Children of the Universe felt like a much needed shot in the arm. We felt optimistic that this was the first step to turning our Eurovision fortunes around. It wasn’t. For whatever reasons COTU just didn’t make a sufficient impact, especially with the televoters. Despite being vastly superior, the UK only rose two places from Bonnie Tyler the previous year. Still, at least the next year we’d keep going with a more exciting, modern sou…oh. Yeah.

Not so much.

Iceland 2016

At least the first two didn’t have to go through the ignominy of missing out in a semi final. Whilst many expected good things for Norma John in 2017 and Zibbz in 2018 the one act that kept getting mentions was poor Greta Salome. Sometimes when a good or even great song has poor staging it can take them out of the running. Not here though, right up until the ten nations were read out calling Iceland for success was a sensible thing. Some had predicted top ten, top five and even a victory for the Icelander. The one prediction that I don’t think anybody made was not making it out the semi. Ouch.

Norway 2019

Not all the wayward predictions were forecasting great things for acts before they fell flat. In some cases folks shared occasions when they had underestimated a nation, only for it soar in the final. One such entry was Keiino, for whom some Eurofans foresaw a low final placing or not even making to the Saturday night. At the time many, self included, assumed that the televoters wouldn’t get Fred’s joiking and they’d see it as something humorous rather than the outstanding pop banger we’ve all come to love. Safe to say the televote winners proved this theory complete bobbins, never been so happy to be wrong. Oh, there were also multiple mentions calling them as Eurovision 2021 winners too. That still cuts deep.

Portugal 2019

I had to check this one. I was so certain I saw Conan Osiris’ non-qualification coming a mile off back in 2019. However, after checking my predictions post for his semi, I did in fact call Telemoveis as a qualifier so yeah, I got this wrong too. Many Eurofans were sure that Conan’s experimental sound and arresting visuals would help it stand out from the crowd and bring home a decent result with even the odd mention of ‘Lisbon 2020’ creeping in. There was, however, another Lisbon based predication that many others did not see coming…

Portugal 2017

This one is similar to Norway. By some way the most common responses were all along the lines of “Salvador wouldn’t get out the semi”. Much like the aforementioned Portuguese entry, ‘Amor Pelos Dois’ was another song that split opinion. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that for all it’s fans there were many nay-sayers for whom it didn’t strike a chord. On this occasion, however, this particular writer can feel very smug given one of my earliest posts called the 2017 result almost exactly right. Not predicted a winner since. Not until San Marino are declared victors later this year, that is.

And what about my predictions for this year, you may or not be asking? Well…I’ll let you know after the rehearsals. Still way to early to call.